EMG Bass Pickups

[marnold]

I toyed with the idea of selling my Spector for one of these new swank basses I've seen on here recently, but after playing it some more I decided I like it too much. I like the sustain (it's famous for its sustain) and its acoustic tone. The pickups just blow. They are EMG-HZs. The pots are small and a bit scratchy. I'm probably going to end up having to get the two pups separately at different times. My thought was to get a 35P4 (their p-bass in a soapbar form) for the neck and the 35DC for the bridge. The problem is that it is hard to get my hands on a 35P4. I figured I'd get the 35DC first and put it at the neck and see how I like it. I'd probably leave the bridge HZ and controls in there as dummies--just so I don't have one big and two small holes in my bass.

Any other EMG bass pup related comments would be welcome.

 

[Eric]

I think that Dragonfire company makes bass pickups too, so you could see if anyone here has tried them (they're EMG look-alikes) and what they thought of them. In fact, I think deeaa was going to put some in a guitar of his, so maybe he'll pop in here. I don't know if they're a reasonable substitute or not.

Otherwise, all I can offer is what I know from looking inside my friend's Ibanez SGR. In that case, the wiring was horrible, so pretty much any home-brew job would have been an upgrade. If yours is similar, you might want to consider just going to town on redoing the wiring to see if it helps at all. I don't know much about basses, but I thought EMG-HZ pups were supposed to be decent on basses.

 

[marnold]

The wiring is pretty good--all passive. My problem is that the bass sounds like someone threw a blanket over it. Someone on the YouTubes posted a series of videos with EMG pups. He started with passives and went to actives. I heard that same muffled tone with his passives that disappeared with the actives. I've always liked the Spector/EMG aggressive bass tone. The active pups come with all new pots, jack, etc. so this would end up being a complete rewiring.

From looking at the Dragonfire site, they only seem to do guitar pickups.

 

[Eric]

From looking at the Dragonfire site, they only seem to do guitar pickups.

Really? I originally got the idea from this CL ad: http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/msg/2501219692.html

And googling 'dragonfire bass pickups,' I get this (among other results): http://www.buzzardsbass.com/electronics/pickups/dragonfire.html

 

[deeaa]

Well you know what I generally feel about actives - if I played bass again I'd definitely go for actives. Definitively maybe.*

But for me...I don't much care what the bass sounds like initially. When I record a bass, I just D/I it and build the sound entirely after the fact.

*disclaimer: now that I think of it, the best bass tone hands down came from my buddy who played a Rickenbacker, erm, 4008? Anyway the one that Lemmy from Motörhead used, onto an old 100W single-channel Marshall tube head (I think it was the old JMP) and thru a 15" speaker (I think it was a Peavey Black Widow). It was _not_ driven mind you, no Motörhead-sound, but incredibly punchy and focused yet really made your guts tremble.

If I did start playing bass more I might be tempted by that rick punch. Or maybe a generic maple-neck P-bass...those are punchy as well. Both anyhow much better sounding than Jazzes or the modern basses; all the others lack the primal thud of the 4008 and P-bass.

My current bass (Yamaha SGR) has Jackson pickups and from what I recall they sound good enough.